fighting

All posts tagged fighting

Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 08/04/2016
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Xbox. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

B000GDFUYCPublisher: Tecmo

Developer: Team Ninja

Release Date: 10/26/2004

Rating: Mature

MSRP: $29.99

Available Exclusively On

Original

 

bar

 

The shining gem in this bundle is actually the remaster of DoA 2 which debuted on the PS2. On the downside, it uses the DoA 3 engine and nearly looks identical to that game and I’ll explain how and why.

maxresdefault (2)

The first thing you will notice is that the menu looks exactly like the DoA 3 menu. Nearly the same modes and even the same graphics engine and character models. That’s not to say this game isn’t worth playing, as, like DoA 1, this is more enjoyable to play than to just try out for educational or nostalgic purposes. If you have already mastered DoA 3 then DoA 2 won’t do much for you outside of educating you on the series’ progression. The fighting system is actually much better and faster than DoA 1. When you jump between the two it’s like night and day. The fighting system is slightly altered with more moves, animations, and combos. There’re even more characters here as it almost doubles the roster. What was considered a lot of content back then is standard now as double match rounds, endless mode, and time attack just don’t cut it these days.

615620-914836_20041027_011

What I do love is that the arenas took the danger zone idea and added a step by making them multi-tiered way before Mortal Kombat: Deception did it. It’s exciting to knock your opponent off a ledge to get an extra edge over them and playing chicken with the edges of the arena is a blast. Despite all these great additions, the fighting system just isn’t as refined as newer games in the series and still feels a bit sluggish compared to other fighting games.

maxresdefault (3)

The visuals look amazing on the Xbox and hold up even today despite the awful aliasing seen everywhere. I would have preferred a more direct port than taking the assets and shoving them in the DoA 3 engine. Call it what you want, but DoA 2 is a fun game to play and should be in every DoA fans collection.

doa2

Mortal Kombat X

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/25/2015
Posted in: Editor's Choice, Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Xbox One. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

81OjRGvob9L._SL1500_1-720x927Publisher: Warner Bros.

Developer: Netherrealm Studios

Release Date: 4/14/2015

Rating: Mature

MSRP: $59.99

Also Available On

xbone

pc

android

ios

bar

MOOORRTTAALLL KOOOMMBBAATTT!!! Mortal Monday made gaming history when the original arcade game hit the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and Super Nintendo in 1992. Fast forward 23 years later and people still get just as excited for every new Mortal Kombat game. MKX is a near reboot of the reboot from 2011 by improving nearly every aspect of the game including online. This is the first Mortal Kombat game for next-generation consoles and has set the bar for fighting games in terms of production values.

The first thing you will probably play is the story, it’s needed to unlock Shinnok as well as earn a slew of koins for the Krypt. The story is fantastic and the best one in any fighting game to date. The story has finally evolved past MK3 and takes place 25 years after the last game. Naturally ,the original fighters have aged and are older (but still kick ass), and new generations/kids of these fighters are introduced. The story is actually shorter and more streamlined than MK9. Instead of every character being shoehorned into the story you only play as the good guys and select characters. There are about 5 matches for each characters and the entire story just evolves naturally. Earthrealm is past Shao Kahn and his BS (as the players are), but Shinnok returns to claim the Komidogu amulet and take over Earthrealm. After about 4 hours or so you will get the hang of the entire fighting system and start kicking ass.

2626959-gamescom2014_mkximpressions_20140814

Once you finish the story you will most likely go into the Krypt to spend your koins. Introduced in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, the Krypt is a fan service full of goodies and unlocks to prolong the game and make you earn everything. Character art, Fatalities, costumes, and fan art are many among the Krypt, but it has evolved. Instead of just a large room ,you unlock coffins in it’s a first person adventure that’s its own mini-game. Players can walk around an entire set of levels finding hidden objects to unlock new parts of the mini-game to find more koffins. At certain times koffins will appear (think of the concept from Deception in the Konquest mode) and random enemies will attack when a quick time event will pop up. Succeed and you are awarded a few hundreds koins. This new Krypt idea could stand on its own if it were fleshed out more and is actually quite atmospheric and can be tense.

2559560-mortalkombatx_scorp_torr_snow_showdown

After the Krypt you will most likely check out the Faction Wars. This is a whole new online concept by Netherrealm that extends the Tower concept that was enacted in the first game. There are many different Tower modes with the first being Living Towers. Using the match modifiers that were introduced in MK3 and reimagined in MK9, Living Towers will mix up a random modifier as well as Tower goals. Certain matches will award koins for accomplishing certain things during a match like Jump 25 times, or finish a match with more than 50% health. There are three types of Living Towers. Daily, Hourly, and Premier which are every 5 days. This adds to your Faction War points which will help you when an Invasion starts. At the beginning of the game ,you get to choose from five factions. Lin Kuei, Brotherhood of Shadows, White Lotus, Special Forces, and Black Dragon. Faction XP can be awarded during an Invasion as well by fighting an immortal boss. Players have 30 seconds to do as much damage as they can but the difficulty of the boss is set to Very Hard. Invasion Towers are another way as well.

These Towers also carry over into single player as Tower Challenges which is a randomized Tower with modifiers and Test Your Might matches. Your final score is set and you can send that Tower to a friend to have them beat your score. It’s a lot of fun and extends the longevity outside of online play.

MKX_GamescomScreenshot_KanoScorpion

With the modes out of the way, lets talk about the actual game. The control and responsive are so much better than any other MK game. MK9 tried to recreate the feeling of the first three MK games, and it got stale after a while. MKX is a whole new beast with the core familiar mechanics at play. Balancing is also nearly perfected in MKX thanks to combat variants. Each fighter has three different variants they can play as and this sets their special moves. Instead of some characters having a long list of special moves to spam you with, they are limited this time around and cut down. Every player will have their favorite variant after playing for so long.

Outside of variants ,the fighting is a little more cinematic. The camera zooms in on throws and the new X-Ray moves. X-Rays are now three hits instead of two and the models are much more detailed. More bones break, individual organs are modeled, and fibers on the muscles have depth. It looks fantastic and this is by far the most brutal MK game to date. The Fatalities are the best in any game and are just awesome. New tech allows for facial animations with twitching eyes, lips and overall detailed gore. Organs are split in half and they actually look like their organs unlike previous games with generic gibs. Brutalities made a return, but they are no longer the complicated button press like MK3. Certain requirements must be met in a match such as having 50% health remaining, connecting a number of certain moves in a match, and hitting the right button combo during the final hit of the last round. Brutalities are now variations of special moves but have a twisted deadly ending that throws opponents off guard and are extremely satisfying to pull off and a watch.

vsgsvva0ptjjri7jfmmv

The new characters are actually the best new fighters in the series. All are fun to play and all are distinctive unlike previous entries where new characters felt like cheap rip-offs. Among them, Cassie Cage, Jacqui Briggs, Ferra/Tor, D’Vorah, and Erron Black are my favorite. Kung Jin and Takeda aren’t exactly the unique characters they succeed which are Kenshi and Kung Lao. They both look and feel nearly identical despite having different weapons. Takeda is actually similar to Scorpion more than Kenshi as he uses dual whips and Kung Jin has a bow and staff. Unique weapons, but their characters aren’t fleshed out much in the story mode.

With that said, MKX is an evolution of the series that it so desperately needs. Longevity that’s smart and isn’t bloated content, more online features, and the variants are hopefully here to stay. This is one of the best fighting games of the decade.

Kollector’s Edition: For $90 more you can receive a special box, Scorpion statue, the Kombat Pass, and a Scorpion skin. The statue is made by a sculptor Coarse and the skin is of the statue. It’s beautifully made and well worth it for collector’s. It also comes with a certificate of authenticity.

mkx.png

2014 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Fighting Game

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/15/2014
Posted in: 2014, Game of the Year Awards. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

figher

While there haven’t been really any heavy hitting fighting games like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter (a new Street Fighter anyways) there were a lot of great lesser known fighters this year.

Super Smash Bros.

WiiU_SuperSmashBros_pkg

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that SSB won this year. While the other fighters are great they are more of what we have seen from those franchises already. SSB continues to improve on the already loved formula with more characters and tons of recognizable content that re-ignites memories from our childhood and past and nothing can top that feeling.

Runner-Ups

81Ar+OmejUL._SL1500_Ultra Street Fighter IV———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

 blazblue-chrono-phantasma-coversheet-ps-vitaBlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

1402059797-p4a2-jp-package-art-reveal-noscalePersona 4 Arena: Ultimax

Remember Me (Second Opinion – 12/8/2013)

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/09/2013
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Xbox360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

680024_274869_front (1)Publisher: Capcom

Developer: DONTNOD Entertainment

Release Date: 6/3/2013

Rating: Mature

MSRP: $59.99

Also Available On

ps3-logox360

bar

 

Remember Me is a brand new IP from Capcom. I always welcome new IPs because you never know when you’re going to get the next Assassin’s Creed. Once I started to Remember Me I instantly fell in love with it. The art style is fantastic, the story is engaging, and the characters are memorable. This will be a game I talk about for years to come…at least the story anyways.

you are Nilin, a memory hunter fighting against M3morize. M3morize is a corporation that invented technology to let you forget any memory you want and gain memories. As you can tell, this leads to a civil war because everyone eventually becomes Leapers who are completely corrupted and bereft of memories. It turns out that there is some sort of new world order to wipe out everyone’s memories and make them all mindless soldiers. That’s the jist of it, and if I say any more I will give too much away. The story is fascinating and really plays well with the art style and atmosphere.

2013-06-08_00001

The problem with new IPs is that the developers concentrate on just one aspect of the game and the rest of it gets left behind. This is apparent in Assassin’s Creed 1 after playing AC3. You can see the difference. Remember Me has an amazing story and characters, but the gameplay is just lacking, it just feels useless and unnecessary. The tools you have to play don’t really mean anything in this game, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. The first thing is the combat system. While it’s unique it is very limited and actually holds the player back. Nilin has four different combos she can do over the course of the game. You fill these combos with two different attack buttons called Pressens. These Pressens can increase your health, decrease S-Pressen cooldown timers, give you more powerful attacks, and cause a chain reaction. This seems really interesting, gaining health during combat? It’s more frustrating and limited than you think. With just four combo chains you have to memorize all four of them and also remember what Pressens are in each one. I had one as a focused cool down combo, then one for health while the third was for power. The further in the combo the Pressen is the bigger effect it has. With just four combos combat gets really repetitive and super boring, it just never picks up.

remember-me-pc-1370246955-135

Once you unlock S-Pressens things get a tad bit interesting but only during boss fights. These are powers that can let you attack really fast, stun everyone, place a bomb, and even turn invisible and get a one-hit-kill on an enemy. You can use two different ones on robot enemies that will attack you. These S-Pressens are key to winning tougher battles later in the game. That’s all there is to combat, and it is so limiting and repetitive. I actually only kept going because of the story.

Another part of the game that is never fully developed are the puzzles. There are only four in the entire game. These allow you to remix people’s memories to make them think something happened a different way. You watch a cutscene then rewind it looking for glitches that can change the scene. You have to set off the right glitches to change the memory. The problem is that there are no multiple outcomes. You just keep retrying until you get it right, there’s no fun in that. If I mess with someone’s memory, let me decide how it goes. I also wish there were more of them. There are also Remembrance puzzles that you interact in the world with. They are usually really easy and the answer is given to you after just a minute. I hate how these things were so underdeveloped, they are great concepts. There are a couple of move-the-stuff puzzles using your arm’s special powers, but I felt these were useless. You unlock a gun type of thing that can blast enemies and move things. Why do I need to unlock this throughout the game? Honestly, the moving and blasting open doors just felt like pointless filler.

remember-me-high-res-3

Lastly, the exploration is very linear. The controls respond well, but the best part is just viewing everything. You get taken from the slums to the richest areas of the city. The journey is fascinating and breath-taking. Remember Me feels like a mix of Mirror’s Edge, Steven Spielberg’s A.I., and Blade Runner. I ate it up and the characters are very memorable. I just wish it had better gameplay to compliment it.

After you finish the game you will be talking about the amazing story for a while. While none of these mechanics are bad, they are just underdeveloped and feel like they need more work. The combat is interesting but very limited and repetitive, the same 5 enemies repeat often, and the puzzles are underdeveloped. I hope Remember Me comes back because I love Nilin and her journey through this break taking  world, just give us better tools to explore it.

rm.png

bar

sothatgame

Remember Me is a game I really really wanted to love. Whereas most gamers looked completely over it

(thanks to Capcom’s poor advertising, unsurprisingly) I was super hyped for this game when it was first announced. New and remarkable setting? Check. Assassin’s Creed style parkour? Check. A unique take on puzzles (memory remixing), as well as a unique take on combat? Check. And most importantly, in this generation of established IP’s being done to death and little risks being taken, Remember Me is something totally different. It is a completely new IP coming late into this generations console span. It is a very courageous game, which is why it is so disappointing that so much of it can be summed up as mediocre. What disappoints me the most about Remember Me is  that it conforms to many faults and norms of other action-adventure games rather than shattering them despite having the potential to do so.

Remember-Me-Trailer

You might assume from the conclusion of my opening paragraph that I hate this game, which conflicts with my seven and a half out of ten rating. Well, just like my review score compared to my opening paragraph, Remember Me is a conflicting game. It’s a game that will win your heart over just to shatter it moments later with another long, drawn out boring battle. It’s a game that teases you of a beautiful, interesting and striking world but then constrains your freedom to explore it. One common complaint with action games is that they force you into boring lifeless corridors where you must fight enemies until an barrier magically opens, allowing the protagonist to progress into another one of these rooms, ad infinitum. Remember Me does this  in numerous occasions, however instead of dull, lifeless rooms it is in a breathing, fully realized world. While this does make those battles more interesting, it comes with a cost as it highlights how linear the game actually is. There are some parts where the game kills you for falling two feet below simply because the game does not want you to explore that part. Remember Me would do much better with a BioShock style of exploration, or even better,  in an open world.

The few sections where the game does open up (and ignores its combat completely) are the best moments of Remember Me. The world is very flashy and futuristic, yet also completely run-down. The shanty-towns, skyscrapers, and luxurious marketplaces are all a marvel to explore. Neo-Paris is a beautiful place, and you’ll definitely take a few moments to breath in the sights when the camera actually allows you to see them.  Remember Me is  a dystopia, and it contains a very good story marred with some cheesy writing and voice acting which fluctuates from character to character. Nilin, the protagonist, starts off with all of her memory removed and only the help of a mysterious man named Edge who runs a group known as the “Errorists” (cheesy, I know). It takes place in 2084 (I wonder what dystopian novel that is a reference to) when almost everyone has digitized their memories using  a program called Sensen. Nilin is a memory hunter (in fact, she is the only memory hunter), meaning she has the ability to delete and remix memories. Therein lies one of the true moral dilemmas of Remember Me, which will leave you constantly thinking: how moral is it to adjust ones memories? Is it okay to make your greatest enemy your best friend within one second to avoid killing them?  To delete those memories that haunt you for life so you can be happier? The Errorists think not, and their goal is to overtake Memoreyes, the creators of Sensen. It’s hypocritical that their method of doing so is by using methods that are exactly what they oppose, but that is one of the things that makes this story so interesting.

The world has a huge backstory which can be discovered through numerous documents which you  will want to find. This is one of the few games where the collectibles actually mattered to me, as I wanted as much knowledge as I could have on the world. Back to the characters, Nilin is an amazing protagonist. She is extremely powerful yet also highly flawed, making her feel very much like a human. The same can’t be said about the rest of the characters however. Most of them fall flat, with the exception being Edge. The voice-acting in general is pretty subpar other than Nilin, who has fantastic voice acting, and some lines are really cringeworthy. I’d recommend playing the game in French with English subtitles, as the French voice acting is superb. I wish I knew this before I started the game.

I’ve spent so much time babbling about how fantastic the story and world is that you are probably wondering how the actual gameplay is. Well… unfortunately it is pretty mediocre. It starts off with a ton of promise, as the combo-creation system seems like a unique way to allow us to have creative input on the combat. In the end though, the combat gets very monotonous and you’ll be wishing for each battle to end. The combos don’t have the fluent animations seen in games like Batman series and there aren’t enough combo spaces to fill up. The parkour system is fun yet also seems pointless as they game is constantly directing you where to go, meaning there is no actual freedom to it. The four memory-remixing puzzles included are amazing ideas, yet I wish there were more. The controls in them are terrible and they aren’t really “puzzles” considering the solution is always right in front of your eyes, so on second thought I guess only having four was a good thing because I immensely enjoyed them and if there was any more the flaws would have actually been apparent to me. If there ever is a sequel to Remember Me, which Capcom really should do, then I hope they add more memory-remixing puzzles and make them more open-ended while fixing the controls.

There are a few upgrades you gain in this game, but they all feel like filler such as a machine that lets you unlock doors. Why must I  go through two button presses to unlock a door? There are also a few puzzles other than the memory-remixing ones in this game, but they are all forgettable and also feel like filler.

My final complaint with Remember Me is that it feels pretentious. Now, how can a game exactly feel pretentious?  Well, for one, Remember Me seems to think it is like the Charles Dickens or Shakespeare of video games, with monologues (that feel like plot summary), allegories, and metaphors. These are the moments that really made me cringe, and did often ruin my enjoyment of the game.

Now, to end this review on a happier note, I want to say what is one of the best parts of Remember Me which will certainly make it a cult classic in a few decades: the music and art. This game looks stunning, as I mentioned earlier, but it sounds even better. I rarely check the concept art of a game or look up the soundtrack on youtube, but this game made me do both of those things. The tracks start off with a rather typical orchestral beat, but soon mix with an electro beat that gives it a stunning feel and perfectly captures the theme of the game. Remember Me is a game that I will certainly remember for a long time, just with the gameplay parts hopefully deleted from my mind (God, reading that out loud really makes me cringe).

rm2

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/27/2013
Posted in: Nintendo Consoles, Wii. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

928518_67606_frontPublisher: Nintendo

Developer: Game Arts

Release Date: 3/9/2008

Rating: Teen

MSRP: $49.99

Available Exclusively On

wii

 

 

bar

 

This is the fighting game all Nintendo fanboys live and die by. There’s nothing wrong with that, Brawl is one of the most competitive fighters I have ever played. There’s a huge lovable roster, tons of stages, and a lot of power-ups to turn the tide of the battle. With the addition of online play, this is any Wii owners dream come true.

Once you select your character, a choice of many, you can select the color, and also various stages from Melee and different Nintendo franchises. You can choose which power-ups to disable as well, but I just couldn’t get the huge roster. Link, Peach, Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Kirby, Fox McCloud, Ganondorf, Sonic, Solid Snake, Samus Aran, Ness, Jigglypuff, Wolf, Captain Falcon, and a ton of others. This is a huge roster and nearly every character is recognizable. Once you get into the battle, that’s where the fun begins.

2.1

Brawl was confusing at first. It doesn’t play out like normal fighters. There’s no health meter, instead, there’s a percentage meter and your job is to keep yours down and get your opponent’s up. You can reduce yours by eating food that falls, but the ultimate goal is to get the most KOs in one round. The controls are fairly simple, but take getting used to on the Wiimote. the best way to play is with a Nunchuk. Using the C stick to move around, A and B are your main attacks. B is your projectile/special and A is your normal attack. You vary the attacks but using different directions combined with these attacks. C allows you to jump and Z is your shield. This may seem way too simple compared to standard fighters, but it’s kind of a breath of fresh air. The attacks look awesome, and the fighting is fast paced.

WiiU_SmashBros_scrnC03_03_E3

Various power-ups fall on the battlefield like melee weapons, projectiles, and the one super finisher which is always fun. Hit this orb three times and you can unleash a deadly power attack. Just stand still and hit B. Some characters need to be close, some far away, and some hit the entire area and can’t be avoided. These tend to be deal breakers for hardcore players, but they can be turned off. Honestly, the worst part about the game was how many bad stages there were. The ones where the levels constantly move up and down or to the right make the game feel like a platformer rather than a fighter. I hated these moving stages. It distracted from the core of the game. Some arenas were just way too small and there was no room to move around. There is a large enough variety though so everyone will have favorites.

super_smash_bros_brawl_10_wii_hd_high_res_emulator_dolphin

Some characters are also unbalanced and overpowered, while others are underpowered. I felt Kirby, Samus, and Ness were overpowered. On the flip side, Zelda was underpowered and felt boring to fight with, same goes with Wario. This may vary between players, but me and my partner both felt the same way. There is such a large variety that everyone will find their main character to fight with. I also found there was a lack of modes, with just Battle and online. The game is complete garbage with the AI, this game is only fun with another person.

Overall, Brawl is a solid fighter that’s fast-paced and breaks away from the normal fighting formula. There are too many bad stages, over or underpowered characters, and the game gets boring really quick due to the simple fighting system. The many power-ups will keep you busy and there are a lot of customization options, but in the end, the game has limited appeal unless you are a hardcore Smash Bros. fan.

ssbb.png

 

 

 

Injustice: Gods Among Us

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/30/2013
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Wii U, Xbox360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

672474_265092_frontPublisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Developer: NetherRealm Studios

Release Date: 4/16/2013

Rating: Teen

MSRP: $59.99

Also Available On

ps3-logox360pcpsvitaiosandroid

ps4-logobar

 

Marvel vs Capcom is considered the official fighting game among Marvel fans. What about DC comics? There really hasn’t been a full-on fighting game except for the lukewarm Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It felt a bit stiff, Mortal Kombat fans felt the violence was too watered down, and it just lacked some polish. The MK team has come back, minus Mortal Kombat, and created a very solid full on DC fighting game.

If you have played 2011’s Mortal Kombat reboot you will be very familiar with this game. The 2D fighting plane remains with interactive environments, special moves, and various other things. The game plays a lot like Mortal Kombat with several special moves and small combos at your disposable. You must combine all these to create larger combos, it’s tough and really takes some practice. Some characters are harder to play as than others, but they are all fun to play in their own way. The interactive environments are very neat and I hope more fighting games pick up on it. You can press R near different objects and some are on offense while others are defense. In Batman’s Bat Cave you can press a giant red button to ignite the Batmobile’s thrusters and burn your opponent. Some items can be picked up and thrown. Some levels have items at the very edges to help you escape and keep you from getting cornered.

Injustice Joker

The fighting engine is solid and responsive. Each character looks great and has an awesome arsenal of moves that are faithful to their comic origins. Each character has a special power-up they have that is executed with A. No longer are there four attack buttons, but three. Wonder Woman can use her power-up to switch between her sword and whip. Batman can shoot three batarangs, while some characters have defensive and passive power-ups. These have to recharge of course so they can’t be spammed. They are helpful and can give you a slight edge over your opponent. The power meter returns, like in Mortal Kombat, but is used for different things. Instead of the gory X-Ray moves, you can unleash super special attacks that look awesome. Some are a little less awesome than others, but they all take advantage of the power that each character wields. You can also use the Clash system which allows you to wager part of your special meter once per battle for extra health. These are all tactical additions that can give you an edge and turn the tide of the battle which a lot of fighting games don’t have.

The fighting system takes a little while to get used to because it’s unlike anything else out there. It breaks the mold of traditional fighting games which the genre desperately needs. Injustice has some of the best over the top action seen in a fighting game thanks to the source material. Blood and gore are exchanged for comic book action which you can’t get anywhere else. I also like how NetherRealm made Aquaman cool again. He looks awesome and he’s one of my favorite fighters. He feels a lot like Jade from Mortal Kombat where he whips his trident around a lot and is quick and jabby. I just wish they didn’t use so many obscure comic characters like Sinestro, Grundy, Black Adam, Raven, and various others. I also wish the roster was a bit bigger. At least it makes up for it in content elsewhere.

injustice_gods_among_us_23

The first thing you will dive into is the story. Unlike Mortal Kombat, you won’t fight as every character in the game. I was also highly disappointed in the story because it’s just a pointless mess. Superman is tricked by Joker to kill Lois Lane and this causes some sort of rift and everyone crosses dimensions. Superman on the other side wants to take over the world and suppress everyone, so everyone is fighting their doppelgangers…kind of uninteresting. The plot is just a bunch of DC characters beating each other up, and doesn’t really come to a head. I was glad that the story was as short as it was and was just over with. It seems the story was kind of slapped together and wasn’t given much thought, DC fans will be highly disappointed in it.

After you finish that you can go online or partake in the 240 S.T.A.R. Lab missions that are similar to the Challenge Tower in Mortal Kombat. Go to the Archives to unlock alternate costumes (not enough!), battle mutators, and concept art. This is similar to the Krypt in Mortal Kombat but doesn’t quite offer enough.

large

Overall, Injustice is a very solid fighter that tries to break the mold but offers a weak story mode, and the game just feels like it’s missing something. Is it because it feels so close to Mortal Kombat that everyone is expecting Fatalities or something similar? Is it that the roster isn’t big enough? Too much lesser known characters? I can’t really say, but I can’t quite place my finger on it either. What’s here is great, not to mention that the Wii U gamepad can be used to play the game off the TV or used as a display for special moves. The game does look good with the Wii U getting higher resolution textures and some nicer lighting effects than the PS3 and 360 versions. The Wii U version is definitely the best of the three. With that said there are dozens of hours of content here and you will be playing for months.

sothatgame

Honestly, I came into Injustice: Gods Among Us unsure on what to expect. Honestly, the only other fighting game I’ve ever spent more than 10 minutes on was Super Smash Bros Brawl. Not because I don’t like them, but simply because I’ve never owned one. Due to my lack of experience in fighting games, this game started off very difficult for me. The hardest part for me throughout this whole entire game was the tutorial, where I spent over an hour struggling to learn how to dodge and jump. I thought the controls would feel like that forever to me.

Luckily, the controls will eventually grow on you. I still suck at dodging, but that’s more of a me problem than the game’s fault. Injustice boasts a surprisingly impressive story which I never would have expected from a fighting game. It involves parallel universes (you know, the kind of thing impossible to explain but easy to understand just like the Assassins’s Creed series plot). It’s surprisingly deep but the only characters you really feel bad for/care about are the alternate universe evil Superman (too complicated to explain) and the alternate universe Batman and Lex Luthor.

It’s such a shame then, that the story is so short.  Fortunately, there is much more to do once the story is completed. There is an additional mode called S.T.A.R. Labs which includes its own story (which is completely unremarkable and does not feature voice acting) and has 240 missions which change up the gameplay in various ways so everything feels new. There’s also a Battle Mode which is basically a ladder tournament.

The more I played the game, the more I realized it was more similar to Super Smash Bros Brawl than meets  the eye. Of course, the gameplay of both is completely different but I played both of the games for the characters not the combat (I’m not saying the combat is bad however). I’m not even a big DC fan or anything but seeing all these superheroes fighting on screen made me feel very giddy. We all know there are fighting games which have much deeper and more sophisticated combat; the reason we (or at least I) play Injustice is for the characters.

This game also has a cinematic feel to it. The super moves look really cool (if not completely unrealistic) the first few times you see them. Then, they get more and more monotonous as you progress throughout the game because they are completely un-interactive. Level transitions also suffer from the same issue but not as greatly considering they rarely occur. Fortunately, this un-interactiveness is forgivable because every single stage contains a wealth of interactable objects and depending on your characters class they can be used to smartly evade enemies, smash them, or deceive them.

All in all, Injustice: Gods Among Us is a fun game. While it isn’t the sort of game you can just pick-up-and play without any instruction, those who dedicate their time to it are in for an awesome experience.

The Wii U Difference

The Wii U version is almost the same as the other versions, other than a few differences. The Wii U version does look better than it’s console counterparts and the Gamepad can be used to display the moves list (other than in the S.T.A.R Labs, where it is oddly absent) which is incredibly useful for someone like me who is pretty new to the fighting genre or it can display the game in off-tv mode. Otherwise, you can play with the classic controller (normal or pro) or the Wii U Pro Controller.

While these are features I now can’t imagine not having in my game, the Wii U version almost feels like the outcast of the crew because it is missing many key online elements. Wii U users aren’t getting the DLC until summer and you can not set up private matches or rematch someone, which is extremely disappointing  As well as that, there is a severe lack of online players. About half of the time I joined a ranked match I would be paired against someone in the top 10 of the leaderboard which is pretty unfair considering I’m nowhere near as good as them. I’m still giving the Wii U version the same score because not only does it look better but having a moves list right in front of you is such a brilliant feature.

igauso.png

2012 Game of the Year Awards — Genre Awards — Best Fighter

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 12/11/2012
Posted in: 2012, Game of the Year Awards. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

figher

What makes a great fighter are memorable characters, but most importantly is a solid fight system. Something that isn’t complicated, but hardcore players can memorize the combos. Great graphics usually help, but there must be fun multiplayer and a lot of different modes to keep you coming back. This year had some okay fighters, but none of them were outstanding.

Skullgirls

250px-Skullgirls_cover

Skullgirls wins because it is new and has a great roster as well as a fun fighting system. The game also has a great tutorial that helps and teaches you properly unlike most fighting games. The online play is super fun, and the is helps that the characters you fight with have great personalities and are memorable. Fun new fighters are very rare, so that is mainly why this one wins.

Runner-Ups

673023_265729_front

 Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale

 

 

 

———————————————————————————————————————————————

 

P4XBfpo

Persona 4: Arena

 

 

 

———————————————————————————————————————————————

 

999533_175727_front

 Street Fighter X  Tekken

 

 

 

———————————————————————————————————————————————

 

DOA5_PS3_INL_US

Dead or Alive 5

 

The Mark of Kri

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 11/27/2012
Posted in: PlayStation 2, Sony Consoles. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: SCEA

Developer: SCEA

Release Date: 7/29/2002

Rating: Mature

MSRP: $49.99

Available Exclusively On

ps2

 

 

 

The Mark of Kri is a curse passed down from generation to generation and each first born child bears the mark on their skin. There are six at all times, but some crazy guy wants to kill off the curse or something like that. The story isn’t explained very well and not very interesting. The Mark of Kri’s strong points are the stealth, but it has sluggish combat and camera issues galore. It may have been pretty good ten years ago, but not today.

Combat isn't very fun

The game is very linear with usually only one pathway to follow. You have a bird that is your companion that you can send off to certain points to scout ahead for you.  This is mandatory otherwise you will be fighting off tons of guys all the time and dying. Once you use Kuzu to scout ahead you can plan an attack. Use stealth by sneaking up, buckling against walls, or dropping down on enemies. You use the right analog stick to sweep a beam around that assigns a face button to an enemy, that’s their attack button. You can stealth kill two enemies by starting the attack on one then pressing the buttons shown above the second enemy. Sometimes you need to distract guards by shooting bells with your arrow, scaring animals and other things. This is pretty fun and finding the right path through enemies can be fun. It is the actual combat that is sluggish and troublesome.

The right analog stick should have been used for camera control in this game because it gets lost all the time. It never focuses on enemies like it should and take forever to sweep around. The combat is ok when there are just a few enemies, but later on in the game 15+ will surround you. You get better weapons like the axe that can lock on up to 9 enemies, but this whole lock on business just doesn’t work. I would rather control the camera and have a more fluid combat system that way. The reason why I died so much was that Rau will stop and rub his head, trip constantly, bang his weapon off of stone walls, get it stuck in wood, and this is frustrating. In the meantime, you are being hit and dying while all the unnecessary animations are playing out. Once you get surrounded or trapped you’re dead. Backing out is impossible because once you unblock you get bombarded by attacks.

The stealth is the best part about the game

If that isn’t enough the save system is annoying. There are no save points, just save scrolls. You have to find these and they don’t carry over to the next level. Same goes for max health upgrades. You will end up using your save scrolls or squandering them because you want to save at a hard part. Another issue was using the bow. Aiming at enemies takes forever because you have to wander around the enemy until you get a lock on and if the enemy is too high up you have to fiddle with it until you hit the enemy. Not fun.

The game is really gory

The graphics are just average, even for back then. The game is only 6 levels long and can be beaten in about 4-5 hours. The story is underdeveloped due to the short length and you won’t care about any of the characters. The combat has sluggish controls and the whole sweeping lock on system is a terrible idea and doesn’t work right. The camera has a lot of issues, and the list goes on. For just a couple of dollars this is a decent stealth game, but be wary of all the problems.

Dead or Alive 5

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 11/08/2012
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Xbox360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Tecmo Koei

Developer: Team Ninja

Release Date: 9/25/2012

Rating: Mature

MSRP: $59.99

Also Available On

x360

ps4-logo

xbone

psvita

 

 

 

 

Dead or Alive is one of the longest-running fighting games dating back to the PS1 era. It is also one of the fighting games that probably adds the least amount of features or changes through each sequel. DoA 5 doesn’t really add much, so fans of DoA 4 will be a little disappointed here. The fighting system is nearly unchanged, and all you will notice from the beginning is a new story and a graphical upgrade. The game looks pretty good, and there’s a long 65 mission story, but is it worth the $60 purchase if you are just happy with DoA Dimensions or DoA 4?

The only new additions to the fighting system are the Cliffhangers and Critical System. Both are underwhelming and just add to the already complicated fight system. However, it is more enjoyable to button mash than other fight games that rely on things like jump canceling, jump this, cancel that etc. DoA is based around a triangle fight system that is based on holds and counter attacks. This means you have to be quick and read your opponents moves, most fighting games aren’t like that. This is also a problem because predicting moves is very hard in this game, and having counters and holds for high, low, and mid strikes are just ridiculous and create a very high learning curve that will turn most new players away.

This stage, as you can see, looks boring

The Critical System allows you to do extra damage when the word pops up on screen, when it turns red you can do even more damage, but the timing for this is a serious pain. You spend more time trying to read and predict all this stuff then just button mashing which is a lot more fun. Some fighting games are more fun when learning the moves and the fighting system (Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs Capcom), but Dead or Alive isn’t. You have to focus less on the fight and more on the animations and things that pop up on screen. I spent hours trying to learn all this, but in the end just resorted back to button mashing which I felt more confident in.

Cliffhangers are cinematic events in which you Power Blow (a super powerful charged attack) into a certain Danger Zone and a quick time event come up. This was fun, but it is hard to figure out the special Danger Zone in most stages and leads right back to that issue where you are distracted from the actual fight. DoA 5 just adds too many distractions, but for people who don’t mind (probably hardcore fans) then you may like these new ideas. Despite all of this the fighting system is very fun and fluid and is all martial arts with no fancy fireballs or magic attacks.

Looks a lot like Dead or Alive 4

The story mode is back and is pretty well developed, but is confusing for newcomers. You had to have played past story modes because they pick up after each other. Kasumi is just trying to stop Alpha 152 again and the Mugen Tenshin clan (Ayane, Ryu Hayabusa, and Hayate) are after her. In the mean time, Zack is trying to recruit people for Dead or Alive 5, and most people will find the story mostly uninteresting. It is better than most fighting game’s stories though. The graphics look great and pretty much push the consoles to their limits. There are a new dirt and sweat feature added to characters, but you can only guess why. Dead or Alive is 70% female fighters with large breasts that jiggle with every move in very little clothing. This isn’t a bad thing because most of the characters are well known and very well developed with unique personalities. One of the features in every Dead or Alive release, for me, are the new costumes I can unlock in the game because they are so well done and make the women look even more beautiful.

The story mode also has bonus missions, but after half way through start becoming impossibly difficult. Dead or Alive isn’t really a combo type of game, but pulling off 7 and 10 hit combos can be a serious chore. Online modes are fun as always, but most players will get discouraged at the good long time fighters. This just proves that you must master the triangle system because once you get locked into a combo you’re stuck. Health bars deplete quickly in this game so fights can last only a minute or two.

A lot of new costumes in this game

Overall, DoA 5 doesn’t bring much to the table to call this a true sequel, graphical upgrades, a new story, and just a couple of new additions to the fighting system, but they hamper it down. There are also no new characters just a few cameos from Virtua Fighter. Plus, the stages are actually pretty boring. Construction site, a street, a Japanese house. Yawn. DoA 5 is solid and fun but wait for a price drop.

Sleeping Dogs

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 09/28/2012
Posted in: Editor's Choice, Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Xbox360. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: United Front Games

Release Date: 8/14/2012

Rating: Mature

MSRP: $49.99

Also Available On

ps3-logox360

 

 

 

Sleeping Dogs is actually True Crime: Hong Kong for most people who didn’t know. Does anyone care? No, because the True Crime series had two previous games that were mediocre to poor and there was little hope for this game. Square Enix picked up the project, seeing the potential in the game, and released it as Sleeping Dogs because they did not buy the name from the previous company. What we have here is probably the best GTA clone since Saints Row and that’s saying a lot. There have been many GTA clones but very few are any good or do anything different. Sleeping Dogs features a fluid martial arts system, a huge open world, gripping story and characters, and a few side missions.

The combat system is fluid and intuitive

The story is actually very gripping and entertaining. You play as an ex-triad member turned cop named Wei Shen. You are working undercover to bring down the Son On Yee triad gang and bring in their Chairman. Your rival gang is the 18K which is relentlessly making hits on your turf. This isn’t just your typical gang war story. You actually get to really like the characters and feel for all of them in different ways. While you were working for the triad you can do cop missions on the side as well as busting drug deals throughout the city. This story is pretty epic and has a satisfying ending; I never once felt bored or detached from the story.

If that isn’t enough then the combat system should help bring you in. The combat system is simple, but deep and requires some skill to stay alive. You can counter when enemies turn red, but you must use the attack button and hold the button in combination to bring them down. The animations are fluid and you can really feel the punches. This isn’t just some wailing and kicking combat system that feels half-baked and broken. Some enemies may have weapons which you can take and use, but they are pretty rare because they do so much damage. If you are doing really well you will go into an adrenaline type state and start to heal while enemies may flee from you. The other half of this combat is the gunplay which is really smooth and well designed. The cover system works great because as you leave cover you can go into slow motion and shoot out enemies who might be an immediate threat. This also goes for jumping from ledges. Once you actually start completing missions you will earn Cop, Triad, and Face experience which allows you to upgrade to better moves. Each one can be upgraded to level 10, but I reached this level way before I finished the game so I felt all that experience, later on, was wasted. There just aren’t enough upgrades in the game.

The game really captures the Hong Kong atmosphere

Another main feature of the game is a parkour system similar to Assassin’s Creed. Chase sequences play out often, but instead of climbing up walls you can climb ledges and jump gaps. The trick here is to hit the sprint button just before each obstacle so you smoothly go over them. Keep fumbling over everything and you will lose your target. This is something that has never really been incorporated into a GTA clone, and Sleeping Dogs nails it perfectly.

Of course, you can travel around the huge open city of Hong Kong, but there isn’t much to do. There are the drug-busting side missions, favors, races, and random events, as well as finding hidden boxes for money and clothes. That’s about it. I wound up doing all the favors and most drug-busting side missions but didn’t care for the others. There are some hacking mini-games thrown in here as well as lock picking, bug planting, and other mini-games which are fun. There’s a lot of detail put into the gameplay of Sleeping Dogs, but I just wish I could do more in this huge city.

After you finish the main story there’s no reason to really go back unless you want to collect all the boxes (which can all be shown on your map thankfully), but after you finish this you will probably have had enough. The driving works great, there are lots of different cars, taking taxis is convenient, and there are other things you will be familiar with in this kind of genre, but Sleeping Dogs masters the story, characters, and combat system very well. My biggest complaint is only the lack of side mission variety and the large about of bugs and glitches in the PC version.

You will notice that Wei will always have an endless supply 
of helmets...

The PC versions do give us some nice DirectX 11 visuals with a free high-resolution texture pack for people who have 1GB video cards or better. There is a huge difference with the game maxed out over the consoles. The anti-aliasing and FXAA make the game look smooth and flawless, plus the ambient occlusion adds a little extra that consoles can’t do. The PC version is by far the superior version, and most of the bugs have been ironed out by now since there have been 5 patches released thus far, but a large number of crashes and bugs were unacceptable at launch.

Sleeping Dogs is a beautiful game both in execution and spirit. The game really captures the Chinese culture, atmosphere, and triad feel of Hong Kong. This is a must buy for any fan of the genre, and if you have the high-end PC, make sure to pick that version up.